Vitamix Happiness

Not long after we got the Instant Pot, we purchased a Vitamix (2018 was a banner kitchen-gadget year).  I am not sure what inspired that purchase, but I suddenly got a feeling we ought to have one and spent a lot of time researching before choosing a model.

We have had a bad history with blenders.  We registered for one when we got married in 1997.  We hardly used it, but when we did try to blend some things, it died on us.  Some internal fuse blew out.  Figured we had a dud, and exchanged it.  The replacement behaved the same way.  We tried another brand.  No luck. After a while, we just figured we were not blender people. 

Victor had brought an immersion blender to our household, and we loved that. We generally used that when we needed to blend.  When it died, we replaced it with a similar model but that one was not as durable.  I then did a ton of online research and bought the DeLonghi immersion blender, which is super over-engineered.  Very powerful. We have been thrilled with it.

From my reading about the Vitamix, it seemed to be similarly over-engineered so I thought it would be a good fit for us.  In the event, it certainly is. 

We have never worried about straining the motor.  It crushes ice and other frozen stuff with ease.  It can turn an apple into juice in seconds.  It is easy to clean and looks good on the counter.

Smoothies are now a routine part of our lives.  And while the immersion blender does a fine job pureeing soups, when we need something to be really smooth, nothing beats the Vitamix.

On the Instant Pot Bandwagon

I forget how I learned about the Instant Pot.  I suppose I saw an ad somewhere. I did a lot of reading online (checking out reviews, videos, and competing products). I was excited by the thought of a multifunctional device (it can make yogurt!  it can hardboil eggs!), by the promise of dry beans cooked quickly without soaking, and by the option of sous vide (available with the Ultra model that I decided to purchase) (even though I still haven't attempted it).

I've owned the Instant Pot for around 15 months, and it has become one of the most heavily used appliances in my kitchen.  I don't use it daily, but there are few weeks that it doesn't get set on the counter and plugged in.

The most frequent use, which I had not anticipated, is the preparation of vegetable broth.  I save vegetable scraps in the freezer and whenever I run out of fresh vegetable broth I throw the scraps into the Instant Pot with some herbs and spices and three quarts of water. Set some dials and push a button, and forget about it.  Whenever I get back to it, there's at least three quarts of broth, ready for use in soups and other recipes.  Cleanup is easy, but my favorite part is that the pot doesn't have to be watched.  I can go out and do errands; the Instant Pot finishes cooking and then keeps the contents safely warm until I get back.

The next most frequent use is for beans. We eat mostly vegetarian at home, which means beans are a significant part of our diet.  They turn out well in the Instant Pot, though I still try to soak beforehand if possible, because everybody says this helps the beans cook more evenly.  Even without soaking, though, you can get a good result.

The third most frequent use is for soups and stews.  The Instant Pot has a saute feature, so you can saute aromatics and other ingredients before the pressure cooking step if needed (it's not necessarily dump and cook).  But once that's done, I love locking the top and pushing the button and not having to futz. You can give your attention to other parts of the meal, or just take a rest. 

Finally, I've found the Instant Pot is a great partner for Indian food. Maybe the Instant Pot presses the spices into the food with more force? I don't know, but the Indian food I've made in the Instant Pot (saag, chickpea masala) turns out especially tasty. I've used recipes from the Internet as well as Urvashi Pitre's Indian Instant Pot Cookbook.

One really helpful resource for vegetarian cooking with the Instant Pot has been Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen. This was written before the Instant Pot craze, but Sass has been a pressure cooker proponent for many years.  Most of her recipes include instructions for both pressure cooker and conventional equipment.  I have found the recipes pretty reliable and tasty.

The Instant Pot has turned out to be one of my favorite purchases for the kitchen.

Sexism Visible

I am a science fiction fan, and I am a mystery fan, and I am also a fan of book deals, so I subscribe to the Amazon Kindle Daily Deals list.  When books are two or three bucks, you tend to be open to trying new things.

Or old ones.  I've had a tendency to purchase books by classic science fiction and mystery authors whose titles I remember seeing on the shelves of the used bookstore I worked at in Boston. Stuff that was popular in the 70s and 80s. The series about the rabbi detective; the series about the journalist with a cat; the wizard in spite of himself, and so on. Some of them are remarkably decent.  Certainly I was pleasantly surprised by the Dorothy Sayers mystery series and Agatha Christie.

Lately I have found, though, that any narrative pleasure is severely diminished by the rampant sexism in these old genre stories--even those written by women! Maybe it is the Me Too movement, or maybe I am just getting old(er) and (more) curmudgeonly.  I no longer have patience for characters who judge women by the attractiveness of their bare knees (or more erogenous features).

I am aware of the recent hullabaloo in the fantasy/science fiction fan universe over the increasing popularity and success of feminist, gender- and race-inclusive, and politically concerned work.  Such work has always been among my favorite (I'm thinking of Ursula K. LeGuin, here, but there are certainly others) and I am glad that more of it is being recognized now.

As for series like The Cat Who... and The Warlock in Spite of Himself, I'm just done.  I guess that stuff used to be invisible to me.  Maybe the impact of Me Too is that none of it is invisible anymore.